William A. Raidy

In this review Raidy expresses reservations about the obscurity of Buried Child, yet praises Shepard's imagination and declares the play an ";enormously stimulating"; experience.

Abundant, but now empty, America, presented in almost surreal terms, is the central theme of Sam Shepard's Buried Child, which is certainly an effective companion piece to his unfunny cartoon of last year, Curse of the Starving Class. The Theatre for the New City production, recently presented off-off Broadway, is now at the Theatre deLys and it is an enormously stimulating one.

Earlier plays of Shepard, such as The Unseen Hand, and some of his cowboy mock epics, poke fun at an America saddled with a myth that has become a joke. Buried Child digs a bit deeper, probing the disintegration of the American family...